Sing for Absolution
by childliketendencies
Summary: Following the events of "Bad Reputation": Finn's and Rachel's lives spiral out of control as tragedy strikes them. Long multi-chapter story filled with lots of drama and more angst than it's healthy. Originally called "Separate Ways"
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The characters are all property of Ryan Murphy's show "Glee" on FOX. I just add little bits.

_Additional Notes:_ This story starts off right at the beginning of Rachel's screening of her video for "Run Joey Run". It's a multi-chapter story and will follow the events up until a certain point during Episode 1x18 ("Laryngitis"), and then go its separate ways (no, that's not the reason I called it that). You may expect lots of angsty drama, a bit of mature content, and hopefully an enjoyable twist. Oh, and possibly a spoiler or two for the remaining Back Nine episodes.

Chapter 1

. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

„_I'd like to say a few words first..._ "

Finn Hudson couldn't suppress the grin that stole on his face. It was so typical for Rachel, to want to give a big speech first.

"_Though I understand that a motion picture should stand on its own, I do realise…"_

The words washed over him; he didn't truly pay attention to what she was saying – he was focused on her instead. On her smile, her excitement, the ferocity of her every move. He knew she was satisfied with her – _their_ – project and he was happy for her.

A little worried, too, he had to admit to himself. Nervous, considering that she'd picked him to do this with, and he wasn't sure what she'd told Jesse about that. That talk at the lockers, when he'd told Jesse he'd try to stay away from Rachel: it was times like this when it felt like it'd been just moments ago. He had tried – he really had, but it was as if something about her kept pulling him in. He couldn't get her out of his mind, Jesse or no Jesse. It was worse at night, when he had nothing left to do but lie there and wait for sleep to come: whether he wanted it or not, he kept seeing her face as she'd stared up at him that one afternoon weeks ago, when they'd sung that Madonna mash-up together. He'd looked at her, and for a moment it'd been like nothing else existed, all he'd wanted to do was to cup her face in his hands and kiss her. He'd wanted to do that so badly he still couldn't actually believe he hadn't given in to temptation then. Maybe if he'd had, then things might have gone differently. That face haunted him now, instead. It had become a constant reminder of every bad decision he'd made since then. It accused him of his own stupidity, of ever thinking he didn't want to be with her.

He was a bit slow sometimes – he knew that well enough. It'd taken him far too long to realise what his problem had been. He shouldn't have listened to Mr Schue, for starters. He had a lot of respect for his teacher, but all that talk about finding his inner rock star - that had just been wrong. The guy was a mess himself, if the rumours were true, and Finn had never needed to find the rock star in himself. All he would have needed was to open his heart to Rachel. They'd been friends before, they'd been able to talk about some … really awkward things even, and she'd been there for him. When they'd started dating it was like that sort of died. They didn't talk about anything other than couply things; she seemed so bubbly and overflowing with all this cheerfulness and plans for what to do. It had been cute, in a dorky sort of way, but he'd missed the Rachel who'd confided her problems to him. But he hadn't tried to talk to her about the mess in his heart, either. He'd not wanted to dump all these feelings of hate and betrayal and grief that festered at the bottom of his heart on her. So he'd shut her out. And it'd all gone straight to hell from there. Hurting her. Then losing her to Jesse before he ever got a chance at getting her back. And then…

With an effort, he wrenched his thoughts away from the dark hole that had pulled him in every time he allowed himself to think of the last few weeks. The grin had faded from his face. It seemed only seconds had passed, and Rachel was still talking. He stole a nervous glance at her boyfriend; Jesse was leaning back in his chair, looking at Rachel with a self-satisfied smirk that made him want to smash his face in. The guy was literally oozing smugness. It probably wasn't going to stay there for long, once he saw what they'd done.

And the longer he thought about it, the more he was starting to worry if he truly was such a great actor as she'd told him when she'd gotten him to jump on board her project. It tied into his nervousness about the whole thing; he wasn't entirely certain if he'd been able to hide his emotions all that well.

_**Three days previously**_

"_Ahh Finn, I'm glad I ran into you. Have you got a moment?" She'd been standing outside his classroom for the past 5 minutes, while he'd been trying to act like he hadn't seen her and delayed leaving, hoping she'd just go away. But she hadn't gone away, and he'd had to leave eventually if he wanted to attend the next class. _

_There was no getting away from it. She'd obviously decided that she was going to have to talk to him in person – lately something they'd only done at Glee practice because it was getting just a bit too awkward – since a simple text hadn't been an option. Part of him cringed at knowing she'd resort to such an obvious lie about it, but another part – the part he was trying to ignore – felt extremely happy to be in her presence, outside of Glee club and without Jesse being around. Hoping he wasn't making it too obvious either, he quickly stole a glance over her head and scanned the corridor for any sight of the boy who was normally attached to her like glue whenever he saw her outside of class. There were a number of things he would have liked to do to Jesse St. James, no matter how much the other boy had been trying to be agreeable; it was for Rachel's sake that he'd kept a lid on showing just how intense his dislike of Jesse truly was. Something about him just kept the silent alarm bells in his head going off._

_Suddenly he found himself pushed backwards into the empty classroom. As she advanced on him, her hands on his chest doing the pushing, he panicked. The simple contact of her hands on his clothed chest had struck into him like lightning, and made his insides tingle in a weird way. "R-rachel?" he managed to say, fearing that she could somehow feel his reaction. He had to calm down! Swallowing, he took a step further backwards, moving out of the reach of her hands, and pulled his hoodie closer over his chest by crossing his fists in the front pockets. He knew it was totally irrational, but he feared that she could see straight through the shirt to the ache in his heart if he didn't cover it up somehow. _

"_Sorry, but I wanted to get away from prying ears. This won't take long. I just need a favour."_

_He stared at the floor, to avoid having to look at her. "What is it then?" was what he said after a moment, trying to make it sound as uninterested as possible and managing to sound unintentionally annoyed as a result. He really wished he could look into her eyes, but that was too dangerous territory. Instead, he averted his gaze sideways and followed it up by turning his entire head, trying to make it appear as if there was something really interesting on the far side of the wall. His left foot tapped the floor, in what he hoped would show her that he was simply impatient to be gone. _

_There was a catch in her voice when she spoke again. "Look, I know things haven't been so great between us recently, but please – can't we just put that aside? We're co-captains, we need to set our personal problems aside if we ever want to reach Regionals. With all this…" – he could hear her swallow before gulping out the next word – "tension… between us, we're not contributing anything positive to the club at the moment, and the atmosphere in the club was already bad enough even before this glist came out and--- "_

_She wanted to give him a motivational speech, now? Anger welled up inside him, and it made looking at her bearable. So he turned his head to stare right into her face – and saw that she, too, had been and still was looking in a different direction. That threw him off-course for a moment, and he exhaled loudly, pressing his lips together to avoid saying the wrong thing._

_He'd learned. _

_His exhale had made her stop in mid-sentence. She turned her head then, but even before her eyes could meet his he'd walled himself up, and met hers without flinching. __"What's the favour?" he said, softly._

Of all things she could have asked him – her request had totally caught him by surprise. It'd taken her the remainder of that break, at least two dozen wordy texts and another break to get him to the point of even considering it. By lunch he'd been a broken man – and also a fairly content one, seeing that he'd spent almost the entire morning with Rachel, without having seen Jesse even once. During lunch she'd confided in him that her boyfriend was attending some kind of all-day dance event in his hometown that he'd not been able to get out of, and while that had added another note to the alarm bells already present in his head, he'd drowned it out with his sheer happiness of being able to be with Rachel for so long. Because by the time lunch was over, their ailing friendship had taken a turn for the better and for the first time in weeks he'd been able to relax in her company. It'd almost been like Jesse'd never happened – and while it'd also felt a bit like _they_ had never happened, he'd been kinda glad for the break he'd been given. Yes, he wanted to be with her, but it felt good to be able to talk to her like a normal person again, not like someone who could make and break his heart at every look of her eyes. He'd told her about his mom and Burt Hummel, and how strange it still felt to have him around – and how he thought it was hurting Kurt. There'd been a moment when she looked at him, oddly like, as he'd told her about his conversation with Burt about his love for his mom, but she'd not said anything. They'd not talked about anything that would've touched on their own relationship, nor on what'd been before it. It'd been a strange feeling, a bit like floating on a gazillion balls in this ball pit his mom had once taken him to play in as a kid, being held up by nothing but air but still knowing there was all those bits of plastic keeping him from falling.

And all that time she'd been trying to convince him to do this video with her. At the beginning it'd sounded crazy – a video, of all things? – but she'd reminded him that Mercedes and Kurt had made that Vogue video with Sue and that hadn't turned out bad, and she'd told him she'd got Artie to agree to direct hers, too. In the end it'd come down to two arguments against it – he'd not thought he'd be any good at acting, and he'd been wary of what Jesse might say when he would find out she'd done the whole thing with him. Jesse, she'd said, wasn't going to have any problem with an "artistic statement", and then had quickly changed the subject and reminded him of the time he'd helped her out with her role in that Cabaret musical, and how she'd told him then that she thought he wasn't a bad actor – that it was just playing someone else – that she thought he might actually like it because he could forget about his own problems for a while and put himself into someone else's shoes. He'd kinda liked that thought.

But looking back at it now, as he heard her ask for the lights dimmed, and the numbers started counting down on the screen, fear was building in his heart. There had been moments when it'd been exceedingly difficult to remain in the shoes of this Joey person he was supposed to play. It'd been like this connection he'd always felt, the one he'd last felt when they were singing the Madonna song and that had sort of died when Jesse had joined, it was back and they could both feel it. There'd been those moments when "Julie" was no longer Julie but had become very much his Rachel who was dying in his arms, and no amount of cheesy fake ketchup blood made that feel any less weird. He'd so much wanted to kiss her and press her against him and tell her he'd always be there for her that it'd almost made him drop her as he tried to fight his own instincts. He knew it was totally idiotic but it still didn't change anything – it'd taken him a good ten minutes just to stop the shakes after the first time the scene was shot. He wasn't sure how Rachel felt about it, but she'd been acting a bit weird around him afterwards, especially when he'd rushed up to her when he'd seen her anguished face in the angel costume and had hugged her. She'd never been more desirable; he'd never felt more in love with her than at that moment, with those wings on her, looking so much like his fantasy had come alive. He couldn't even remember what he'd said to her then, although he remembered saying something before she'd gently detached himself from his arms after what seemed like forever to him, and told him his part was done. He'd barely seen her since; he'd wanted to tell her that he really appreciated that she picked him to do this with, and that it'd been great to spend time with her again. That was important, telling her that. He needed her to know. He'd tried to tell her earlier, but she'd walked in with Jesse's arm around her, and there'd been no opportunity for it. And now she was exchanging these looks with Jesse, and …

Fact of the matter was – he finally admitted to himself – that he was terrified. Not just about Jesse noticing - they'd all see how he hadn't been able to contain his feelings. When he thought about it now he couldn't remember a single take where his emotions hadn't overcome him at least in some way. No amount of editing the AV club guys might have done could possibly hide that. And yet – Rachel seemed so happy. It didn't add up.

He swallowed, nervously, and gripped the sides of his chair.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The lights on the screen in front of him were still flickering but he wasn't seeing anything on it anymore. All of a sudden he'd found it really difficult to breathe. He'd been stunned ever since the first moment he saw Puck's face on that screen instead of his own face, and then Jesse's, but it hadn't been until he'd seen the images of himself and the other two – dressed identically – walking down that same corridor that he'd truly realised what her intensions had been in doing this.

It'd been awful, just as he'd feared. But it was a different kind of awful – he didn't actually give a damn anymore whether anyone saw how he'd felt on screen or off. He'd been played. How could she…? Had it not meant anything to her? It couldn't have been only him who'd felt it – she must have felt it, too. They'd breathed the life back into their friendship again that day, and then… and then… it couldn't have only been him who'd felt that spark between them when he held her. She had to have felt it – it couldn't just have been an act. Yeah they'd been acting, but even if she'd not said anything, even if he'd only moments ago feared that she might not have felt similarly, he'd sort of been certain, deep down, that it hadn't only been him who'd felt the connection between them returning. He could remember her heart beating against his chest when he'd hugged her, and it'd felt like it was beating just as fast as his – and she'd stayed in his arms for a while. Hadn't she?

It _must_ have meant something more to her than… than just surrounding herself with guys who could give her reputation a boost. It must! It couldn't have been… the Rachel he loved wouldn't do that, sure she wouldn't!

Nothing seemed certain anymore. No – nothing seemed _real_ anymore. The more he thought about it, the worse it got. She knew how he felt about her. He'd told her that day at the lockers. She fucking knew – and she'd totally used that. How could he have been such a fool?

As the lights went up his mind was still reeling. He didn't know what to think, or what to do. How could she – she of all people, she who had berated him for not wanting to be with her because of his reputation – use him like this, just to hike up her rep? And not just him, but the other two guys? What was that all about? It had to be the worst joke, ever.

"_Well, why don't we just take a moment to really absorb what we've just watched…"_

He couldn't hold back. He had to say something. It was just too much to take. So he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. "It was garbage!"

That got him her attention; she looked at him and he stared right back. For a moment, the shock on her face felt good – he wanted her to feel hurt, as hurt as he was feeling – then the moment passed, as he heard first Puck, then Jesse add their bits. But neither of them seemed to get it, really – Puck seemed most pissed about his rep taking a blow for it, and Jesse apparently had an issue with having to share his star status with two nobodies.

All his anger, all his frustration, all the hurt he felt – it rose up in him, slowly, but steadily. He didn't want to throw it at her, not like this, not here; he wasn't sure how it'd all come out. He felt more like crying than shouting, like gripping her and shaking her yet at the same time he wished he could just run away and forget all about this.

"_It was an artistic statement!"_ she was saying, trying to defend herself to Jesse.

"No!" he heard himself reply, in Jesse's stead. This didn't have anything to do with artistic, this was one thing only. And he needed her to know that he knew. "It wasn't. It was you trying to make it look like you had a bunch of guys fighting over you, so you could stop looking like some kind of outcast and be seen as some … hot slutty girl singer!"

She stared at him like he'd punched her in the face. Her eyes were like two open wounds, making his insides squirm, but he couldn't stop the torrent anymore even if he'd wanted. With a burst of energy he hadn't known he could muster right then and there, he was out of his chair and suddenly found himself staring right back into those eyes as she now stood before him, looking up. Looking at her like this made it worse; it took the anger out of him, and turned it into something else, something that made his voice crack and his heart feel like it was squeezed dry of life. "How could you do this to me? To all of us guys?" He didn't care about the other two, but they'd been her pawns just as much as he had. "Is your stupid reputation more important than your relationships?"

And at that, he couldn't take it anymore. One last look at her face, and he fled. Walked out of the room as far as the door, left it open behind him and ran. His world was fast coming apart at the seams, and he had no power to stop it anymore.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .

Rachel stared after Finn, stunned by his words. How could he have said that – how could he have called her something like that? She'd not wanted to hurt anyone! Least of all him! His accusation had been like a slap to her face – it'd brought back that moment, the moment she'd been trying hardest to forget ever since it'd happened. _"Is your stupid reputation more important than your relationships?" _How dare he talk to her of reputation?

It was just a stupid video. It didn't have anything to do with real life. Why couldn't they see it like that?

She turned to face her boyfriend, but he was already up and getting ready to walk out, too.

"Jesse, wait!" she cried out, trying to stop him but he walked by her with such a stony face that she shrank back from it, and was left standing there with nothing but her own pain and disbelief to hold on to. Mr Schue and the others were looking at her, and they didn't look so impressed, either. She gave them a weak smile that she couldn't uphold for more than a few seconds. How could this have gone so wrong?

But as she went back to her chair and sat down on it, Finn's parting words kept on a steady barrage onto her thoughts. They hurt her the most. Because, she realised then, they were true. That's exactly what she'd let it become.

A sob rose up in her, and, realising the others had left her behind to sit in the music room all by herself, she gave in to it. Burying her face in her palms, she cried, afraid of losing Jesse – and yet she couldn't shake Finn's face from her mind.

. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

All done! Hope you enjoyed it so far. Sorry about the largish addition to the first chapter. I had to make some changes to accommodate some more plot twists later.

Leave a review if you liked it (or not)!

Until the next chapter – adieu!


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The characters are all property of Ryan Murphy's show "Glee" on FOX. I just add little bits.

**Notes:** Thank you muchly for your opinions – they're truly appreciated :) Poor Finn is in for a rough time this chapter. I'm introducing a third POV (point of view), and I hope you'll like it. I didn't think I'd have that much fun with it because I don't like the character but I've always felt at home writing the bad guys so go figure! The songs in this chapter are **Broken**, by **Lifehouse**, and of course **Total Eclipse of the Heart**

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 2

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . . ..

He tried to leave it all behind by getting out of the building and running, as if distancing himself bodily from her would make it any better. Easier. Would make it bearable. And his feet just carried him home. Home. Where a stolen snapshot of her lay waiting next to his bed, mocking him. It was scrunched up by his hand in a second, thrown across the room at the waste paper basket. He collapsed onto the bed, stitches in his side, his chest heaving from exertion, and simply lay there, focused on the sound of his breathing as he waited for his body to calm down.

But it didn't. In his anger he'd been thoughtless - mindless. All that time he'd been running, he'd felt the pain that was building in his body, in his chest and he'd latched onto that with his thoughts. But the longer he was lying there now, the worse it got. It transformed, turned into something else. It took the anger and washed him clean of it. Left him hurting in a way that was worse than before. Being angry at her had made it bearable. But it was as if he had some kind of fail-safe inside him that stopped him from being angry at her past a certain length of time or measure of intensity and turned being angry into something unbearable. When the anger bled off, all he was left with was.... pain. He'd wanted her so much, but had tried so hard to stay away from her. He'd wanted their friendship back, that connection that he seemed to crave with his whole being, and had been – finally – given that small hope, that little bit of a break, ...and then? It'd all just been a game to her.

He just lay there, wishing it would pass. But it didn't. He went over everything again, in his mind; hoping there was still some room for a misunderstanding. But there wasn't.

When darkness settled over the house, he didn't get up to switch on a light. He tossed and turned on his bed, trying to fall asleep, to banish everything bad to the next day. Part of him hoped it had all been a bad dream and he'd wake up and the day had never happened. Or Jesse had never happened. But that just made it worse – it wouldn't have changed anything about his own stupidity at having broken up with Rachel in the first place. He'd literally driven her into the arms of Jesse. And every bit of love she'd ever felt for him had left her now, had been replaced by Jesse, while he had been turned into nothing but a pawn in her game to improve her own popularity. That connection he'd thought had been rebuilt when he'd thought she'd wanted him back in her life – it 'd been just a joke to her.

Focusing on her actions instead of his reactions brought back some of the anger he'd felt earlier, and it made it easier again. He curled up on his bed, hoping for sleep to come and take him, but it wouldn't come. Eventually he snatched his ipod from the night stand. When he plugged the earpieces in, he realised it'd been playing all this time – he must have forgot to switch it off before.

_- barely holdin' on to you_

The broken locks were a warning you got inside my head  
I tried my best to be guarded, I'm an open book instead  
I still see your reflection inside of my eyes  
That are looking for a purpose, they're still looking for life

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
with a broken heart that's still beating  
In the pain (in the pain), is there healing  
In your name (in your name) I find meaning  
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on  
I'm barely holdin' on to you

I'm hangin' on another day  
Just to see what you throw my way  
And I'm hanging on to the words you say  
You said that I will be OK

The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone  
I may have lost my way now, haven't forgotten my way home

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
with a broken heart that's still beating  
In the pain(In the pain) there is healing  
In your name I f----

He yanked out the earplugs again; he couldn't stomach listening to that now. It just made it worse. Leave it up to stupid chance to give him a song that might as well have been written about his day... the chorus kept swirling around in his head. It made him angrier still; he focused on that, because he could feel the despair underneath and he couldn't give in to that. And after a while, exhaustion finally carried him over into sleep.

Finn woke in the night, feeling clammy, his chest still hurting, his body drenched in sweat, shivering, with burning eyes and an aching head. He'd dreamed of her – of her dying, like Julie in that song, and of him trying to save her but she'd slipped from him the harder he'd tried to hang on. Panic gripped him. Blindly, he reached out to his night stand, reached for the photo lying there, until he remembered that it was no longer there. Almost frantic, he slipped out of bed, crawled over the floor to the waste basket and by the sliver of light falling into his room from the street lights outside he searched every scrap of paper until his shaking hands found the little scrunched up ball on the floor. He smoothed it out, pressed it against his chest, and took it back to bed with him. He couldn't bear to look at it, but just holding that picture there, so close to his heart, calmed him down again. Only then did he taste his own tears on his lips, and realised he'd been crying all this time.

. . . . . . .. . .. .. . . . . . . .

"_You know for being a part of homo explosion you don't suck... much."_

He guessed that was intended as a compliment. Life at this school was more of a challenge than he'd originally thought – no one in his old school would have dared to talk to him like this. Not that he didn't know how to handle it, but it was irksome and a waste of his time. Crossing his arms over his chest, he looked the tall, gangly lout in front of him slowly up and down, with his most condescending expression. "Thank you for your opinion. I know how hard it must be for you to form one, with a brain your size."

He grabbed the last of his books and walked off, before the jock had a chance to decipher the the insult. This kind of thing was really getting old.

If anything, Jesse St. James realised as he was strutting down the hallway to his locker, coming to this school had given him a new level of appreciation for Vocal Adrenaline. He'd come to take his status there as given; Carmel's glee club was the crème de la crème, the top of the ladder of that school – they were revered, worshipped like Gods, with him as Zeus, the greatest of them all. No one would have dared to use the auditorium without getting permission from them first, no one would have dared to call them names or throw things at them.

But McKinley wasn't Carmel, and he was becoming painfully aware of that. It would have been different if the kids in the club had a backbone, but they were all soft, sweet, confused nothings. The longer he stayed, the greater his annoyance grew – there was no point in being here, they took care of his job all by themselves by just being and doing what they were and did. He hadn't even bothered with anyone other than Rachel and Finn.

Rachel and Finn.

Those two were trouble. From all he'd heard about her, he'd expected her to fall for him at the bat of a single eyelash – and she'd complied accordingly at first. But then that harebrained oaf had entered the scene, and shown that he, too, had that effect on her. It'd made being with Rachel like walking on quicksand – whenever he'd turn around Finn was there, if not in person then certainly on her mind. The only redeeming feature about it was that while the guy had a hold on her like no other, he didn't even seem to know it. And Rachel herself was working right into Jesse's hands by stubbornly denying she felt anything for Finn. But that just wouldn't cut it.

That awful video had made it gratingly obvious that the two of them just couldn't leave each other alone. Watching them had made his insides boil – he was her boyfriend, and she not only replaced two thirds of the screen time of him with her ex-boyfriends, but also did her dying scene with Finn? He couldn't let that go. No girl had ever upstaged him like that.

He was going to make her all his. She'd be feeling so small and guilty by the time he was done with her, that it would once and for all wipe that pea-brained troll out of her mind. She had to be all his.

Dumping his books unceremoniously into his locker, he slammed the door shut on it. On the other end of the hallway, Rachel was just approaching her own locker. It was time.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_You broke **mine** first you broke **mine** first you broke **mine** first you broke **mine** first you broke -_

"_Rachel?"_

She heard her teacher's voice calling her name, but couldn't shake the daze she was in. Opening her eyes, everything was blurred. The lighting – even dim as it was in the as yet unused choir room – made her want to close them again.

"_What are you doing in here? I thought you'd have gone home by now."_

She'd come in here during second period, when her headache had got too bad to stay in her Spanish class. Finn had been there, sitting in a corner by himself, with his book propped up in front of him acting like a barrier, and the message had been clear enough: leave me alone, don't look, don't talk at me. Mr Schue had let her out without asking for an explanation; sometimes the man was worth his weight in gold. She'd fled, and her feet had brought her here like an automaton.

"N-no, I need to stay here … for rehearsal..."

She heard him inhale sharply, and then release his breath after a long moment. Her head stayed down – she didn't need to look at him just then to know he didn't think that was a good idea. But she had to. There had been a reason she'd come in here, there'd been a reason she'd sat down at the piano and gone through the words.

She'd come to school this morning with a mission: having gone through everything again in her mind, she'd realised where she'd messed up. She'd used them all; she'd played them in the worst way and they'd seen right through it. In hindsight it had been a terrible idea. But at the time it'd made sense. It'd served a purpose. Seeing her name so low on that list had done something crazy to her. She'd let her craving for popularity blind her to the people who were dear to her, and now it'd cost her. It was just how Finn had said it – she'd had no right to be angry at them for their reaction. Especially not at Finn. After all those months of wishing he'd chose her over his popularity, and throwing it into his face when he'd broken up with her, she'd shown herself to be no better. She'd used him; she'd deliberately lied to him again in order to get him to agree and she'd played with the feelings he'd admitted to have for her. She'd manipulated the one person whose friendship meant most to her, and he'd realised it. And she'd meant to find some means to apologize to him, as well as Puck – and Jesse. She'd picked out the song before she left her house, planning on singing it to them this afternoon.

But then Jesse had found her. Jesse – her boyfriend. While her first stunned reaction to his walking out had been fear of losing him, that had dissipated as the hours had passed until she'd been less worried about his reaction than Finn's, for some reason. Perhaps because they shared a similar outlook on life, had similar goals, she'd not considered that he might have been just as hurt as Finn had been. Angry – yes; she'd seen that in his eyes when he'd walked out, but she'd felt confident that explaining herself would get her his forgiveness.

But it hadn't. She'd broken his heart. The pain she'd seen on his face, the hurt that had bled through his words – the way he'd looked at her, reminded her that he'd given up all for her, and she'd repaid him by playing stupid games with him.... it had brought down the house of cards she'd so carefully constructed in her mind, brought it crashing down and burst her heart. It wiped every thought other than Jesse from her senses.

She was still going to do the song. She needed to do the song. That's why she'd stayed on. She had to try and look him – them - in the eye, and hope that she could make him – them – see that she knew she'd made a terrible mistake, that she was so sorry. She needed him. Both of them. She had to show him that without him she was nothing. That she'd do anything to undo the damage she'd done.

"_Rachel, I don't think that's a good idea..." _Mr Schue's words broke through her reverie. She looked up at him, wiping the last vestiges of her tears away with her finger.

"No, I have to – I have to make it up to... them. There's a song I need to sing."

The teacher looked at her for a long time, searching her face for something she didn't know, saying nothing. She looked right back at him, not bothering to hide the emotion on her face. Finally he nodded at her, slowly. There were no more words necessary – she knew he didn't necessarily approve, but that he wasn't going to stop her. For once, he wasn't going to ruin it for her, and she was thankful.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

By the time Glee rehearsal came around, all he wanted to do was go home. All day long he'd been pretty much out of it. If it hadn't been for his mom being home today he wouldn't have gone to school, but he wasn't ready to answer the questions yet that she would inevitably ask. It'd been bad enough to endure her puzzled looks at breakfast when he'd finally shown up with eyes that were still slightly red and puffy.

The worst thing had been seeing Rachel in Spanish class. Mr Schue had been really cool about it and let him sit by himself in the far back and pretty much ignored him for the entire class, so he'd put up his book in front of him and hidden behind it, wishing everyone would just forget he was there. The spanish teacher hadn't said anything about the way he looked so he'd hoped the zombified look had gone away by then, but he wasn't up to talking to anyone today. He'd tried to ignore the impulse to stare over the book at the back of Rachel's head, even if it had a strangely soothing effect on him. He'd done just fine, staring at the words in his book, trying to will them to make sense, when he'd heard Rachel's voice asking Mr Schue if she could leave. And then he just hadn't been able to help it – he'd looked up, followed her every move as she'd slowly packed away her stuff and got up. His eyes followed her as she got up, her head hanging low, and walked to the door, pressed down on the handle, opened it, walked out, closed the door again. And then, for the matter of a second or two, her face had appeared in the door's little window frame, and their eyes had met across the distance. They'd stared at one another, each noting the other's misery, and he'd been incapable to look away. It'd seemed like too long for him. All he'd wanted was to forget she ever existed, forget she could make him feel this way. Then the moment had been over, she was gone. And he'd continued to sit there, feeling like she'd taken a part of him away, and he was having to struggle to keep breathing without it.

He'd been glad he wasn't going to see her again that day. Mr Schue had said she'd excused herself because of a headache, so he figured she'd gone home. So by the end of lunch break the very last person he expected to find sitting on the piano chair in the choir room was Rachel. His heart skipped a beat, his entire body froze as he stood in the door frame, and panic gripped him. He couldn't deal with this now. She hadn't seen him yet – he could still turn and leave. But the others were coming up behind him, so it was either walk in with them or let them through and leave, admitting that he was chickening out of this. Taking a heavy breath, he walked into the room, all the way up to the back where he sat down and tried to play invisible again.

. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He knew she wasn't singing this for him alone. He realised that. But as she stood there, so alone, misery pouring out of her eyes, he couldn't stop wishing it was. And as he stared at her, he lost himself in the sound of her voice, the words of the song, and

_...Turnaround, Every now and then I get a  
little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes  
Turnaround bright eyes, Every now and  
then I fall apart _

… _sees himself coming up behind her, slipping his hand around her waist, grabbing her hand and spinning her around to face him. As they stand there, so close he can see the trembling of her lips, he reaches down and gently pulls her chin up so he can look into her eyes. But her eyes drift off, drift away from him, look past him. She doesn't see him at all._

_And I need you now tonight  
And I need you more than ever  
And if you'll only hold me tight  
We'll be holding on forever _

_And we'll only be making it right  
Cause we'll never be wrong together  
We can take it to the end of the line  
Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time  
I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark  
We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks _

… _and in his mind it is him singing to her, him singing with everything he's got, begging her, pleading with her to hear him, look at him, hold him – to remember what they had, remember how it felt – all those times they danced like this, looked at each other, felt that spark ignite between them. He's been so blind all that time. But he knows it now. He needs her. She's got his heart. She has to know it. If only she would look at him and see it._

_I really need you tonight  
Forever's gonna start tonight  
Forever's gonna start tonight _

_...But she doesn't look at him. He feels her pull away, fight against his embrace. And he is too helpless to stop her. She takes his heart along with her as she steps out of his grasp, as she leaves him behind without a glance, turns the past to grey ash in her heart, and with every step he knows he has lost her a little more..._

… the image shifted in front of his eyes. He was back in his chair - still the same chair, he'd never left it – and she was still standing there, singing. But there was no doubt now whom she was singing to.

"_Once upon a time I was falling in love  
But now I'm only falling apart" _

It could have meant him. But she only had eyes for Jesse. He felt like he'd truly lost her now.

"There's nothing I can do  
A total eclipse of the heart."

Her eyes turned to him as he couldn't help joining her. It felt like his world was ending right there and then. There truly was nothing left for him to do – he'd tried it all. Had tried to be there for her, to be understanding, to be supportive, to be a friend – had tried not to show how jealous he was, how hurt, how much he truly needed her. How much he loved her. It was all in his eyes now, for her to read there if she chose to see it. But if she did, then it scared her – she looked away. He'd lost her.

The song wasn't finished yet, but he knew he wasn't going to make it out of there in one piece if he was going to stay. He was trying to stop himself from shaking, and he had to keep his eyes open to stop them from filling up with tears again. So he got up. Not fast, not slow. Turned his back to the room, to her, and walked out before it got too much to take. But it already was.

He loved her. And he'd lost her.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .

That's it for today. I hope you liked this chapter.

Things are going to take a turn for the slightly better for Finn... soon. But not for long.

Leave a review if you liked it (or not)!

Until the next chapter – adieu!


End file.
